Family Values
by Nonsuch
Summary: Imagine ... imagine just how it would be to be bound for all time to a mirror. To every mirror. Doing nothing but watching the lives of others play out before you ... post FOB


Right, here we have a monolouge from 'sister of mine' as featured in Family of Blood. Bear in mind throughout this that I'm writing this from an alien mindset being vaguely influenced by the girl she appears as. Anyway enjoy, and please review! It is ever so helpful!

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I never get lonely. No, I watch them, watch them all. Mother, Father and Brother of mine are all most unfortunate in comparison to me – for I at least have a vaguely varying occupation. He's told me about them. He speaks with a low haunted voice of them as if cloaked by the uttermost darkness of the soul. I need do no more than stand watching him through blank, unresponsive child's eyes to torture him most fittingly for both his crime and his kindness.

My idleness makes a change to the surging, seething mass of rage and thirst for utter domination that previously was my only feature, compliments it and accentuates my purpose. Watching them, the humans I mean, is most curious. The girls do the most curious things throughout time. Take their hair for example – such futility! They tie their hair in ribbons that tangle and tug at the scalp, braid it painstakingly only to spoil it after a fitful sleep, take hours to curl it into a mass of beautifully composed ringlets only for them to straighten and tangle after hours of tireless dancing. The girl I knew loved her hair. She thinks of it sometimes when not of her _Dear Papa_, or _Beloved Mama_, of how her _Nanny_ would brush it a hundred times each night telling her stories of weeping damsels and their suitors to maintain her still submission.

They are utterly vain, think only of self, unlike the Family - we care for each other with the strength of feeling we hold for ourselves. They will preen and murmur over their outward visage for wasted hours of the lives whose passage marks nothing but a steady decay. One girl spoke to herself as I stood watching behind the curtain captured within her reflection. She worried, worried so terribly over the fate of a meeting with a man, she murmured of her inferiority, of her inadequacy – of which I can only agree. I was awarded a vague degree of fleeting pleasure to observe how she returned in tears, dragging her hand across her crudely made up face, leaving a sweeping streak of red marring her features, she broke down weeping tirelessly for what could have been hours of her time. I laughed inside as the child wept alongside me.

There was another who I remember, it was a beautiful room, perfect for I – each wall was panelled with countless mirrors, it was delightful to work my way between them all and observe the spectacle of the grand Ball play out before me. It was as if the inhabitants were consumed by some strange magic, for they danced throughout the night, never failing, forever merry and gay as the exchanged pretty chitchat, compliment and barbed criticism. I feel the girl cry, often. She tells me why. She cries for the future she will never know. I do wish she would cease with such behaviour, her tears mean nothing to me, humans are so _weak_, and their weakness does nothing other for me than to justify our superiority and righteousness in our ultimate quest.

There are others. Countless others spread throughout the infinite ages of this world. I tire of them somewhat now, for humanity may of changed their clothes, and rose from the shadowy depths of absolute crudity and primitiveness, but the despicable weakness and sickening self-obsession never fade or tire in their prominence in this race. Whoever it may be, from the poorest starving leper to the most wealthy Emperor in the worlds their own well-being will ever be their main concern. I see them all. Watch them wake in the morn and retire to bed each day as their life slips further from their grasp beyond their realisation – tis a pity they will never know of their own futility in merely caring to exist.

The only figure I can never tire of is the Time Lord himself. He is fascinating in a way that induces terror for what he is capable of committing. When I see him, as he looks on at me without fail once each year, I see nothing but death, and infinite pain of which he can never speak for he has no one to tell. He never speaks now. Only ever spoke once, with a voice so low and cold it _stung_, to inform me of the fate of my family as I looked on in silent, unspoken hatred for the cruelty of his kindness. He just stands, for hours and hours, staring at me as I peer back allowing the child in all her awed apprehension and unspoken fear to rise to the surface and play out the girl he so torments himself over imprisoning in the most perfect absolute torment it would ever be possible to conceive. For he knows there is nothing that can be done to save her. She may remain as a faint, insistent residue within me but only ever surfaces when I permit it – she will never live, never know love again or ever have any love to give. I rarely do, for her thoughts have a way of latching onto my own.

It's infinitely curious, how one day the child began mulling over and over the new doll she had seen in the shop window that she had pleaded with her mother to buy for a birthday. The girl was a spoilt child, her wishes forever bowed to, and the doll was accordingly purchased and she watched from behind the door as it was wrapped with a shining red ribbon. She thought over and over again for dragging, persistent hours of how she would love to hold the dolly, to brush her hair, to dress and undress her each day as if she were her very own child. It made me wish to cry out. To scream and to shout for such trifling pleasure – but I know not _how_. It was then, just at that moment I felt such a surge of pity. Pity for none but myself, and how such impulses _sicken_ me.

This man cares so for this race. He is tender. You can tell from the way he looks on at the girl I manifest myself as, how he would prefer nothing more than to pluck her from oblivion and return her to her gratified parents as they heaped him with thanks and glory for returning their child home in safety. It agonises him so he can never save her – but saves himself from utter self hatred through my suspension here. It makes him feel merciful. Righteous and true in that he is doing all he can for the girl who's skin is blanched and colourless – the girl who does not breathe when all he is truly doing is giving I and the family all we ever wished for.

Where it not for the glory the Time man has afforded me I would plead with him for death, for an end to the eternal picture of humanity that will be the only sight I will know throughout all time. But I will never be able to thank him enough for his mercy in giving us what we ever quested for – our immortality.


End file.
